


Stay Alive

by Yessica



Series: Whumptober 2020 Yessica Edition [18]
Category: Left 4 Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Child Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Survivor Guilt, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27107152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yessica/pseuds/Yessica
Summary: Nick and Ellis scout for supplies and encounter the reality of the apocalypse.(Whumptober 19 - Survivor guilt)
Series: Whumptober 2020 Yessica Edition [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949233
Kudos: 17
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Stay Alive

There probably weren't a lot of people alive who could claim to have survived two helicopter crashes in the span of just a few days.

Granted, there weren't a lot of people left alive period. And those that were had to be luckier than the four of them and were probably long gone, evacuated by CEDA or the army or maybe they had scored a boat like Virgil and sailed off all the way to some uninhabited island with no fucking infected and only sunshine and rainbows to keep them company.

God, what Nick wouldn't give to be on an island right now.

But instead, he was in Louisiana with four complete strangers – or by now, begrudging acquaintances – and dragging himself out of the burning wreckage for the second time this week.

The air smelled acidic, scorched flesh and still waters. They had crashed outside the city, the middle of goddamn nowhere and there wasn't anything to see for miles. Nick didn't know where the pilot had been headed – in the pandemonium of it all he hadn't bothered to ask. They had just been relieved to be off that fucking bridge, an unhealthy amount of adrenaline coursing through their veins. But either the pilot had been sick or the flying debris caused by the explosion had knocked something vital off the helicopter when they escaped with inches to spare. Whatever the cause, only five minutes after takeoff, with them still busy wiping the blood off their faces, there had been a noise.

Nick had recognized it instantly, that previous plummet still fresh in his mind, and had only a second to brace himself against the railing along the roof of the chopper. A moment later the entire thing tilted sideways and he felt his back press against the metal frame, the vertigo of weightlessness instant. The descent was over just as quickly which meant they hadn't been as far up airborne as they could have been. Probably that was what had saved their lives in the end.

The impact was a jolt of indescribable power, the entire helicopter flipped over and Nick fell headfirst against what had just been the ceiling. He didn't black out, but it hurt like a bitch, and dark spots danced in front of his vision while he blinked rapidly to gather his bearings. The smell of fuel burning had become quickly overwhelming, and it shook him out of his temporary stupor. With some effort, Nick managed to roll over onto his side and then crawl from the husk of bent metal, scraping his hands raw against the uneven surface. Once outside, he checked for the others.

Besides some minor scrapes or bruises, Rochelle and Ellis both looked fine, but Coach was in worse shape. Rochelle made him lean on her shoulder so they could wobble away from the wreckage until they were at least a safe enough distance to check on the older man's injuries properly. There was a deep gash running along Coach's calve, all the way from the back of his knee to his ankle, and Nick didn't need to be some fucking medical professional to tell this was going to get nasty if they couldn't disinfect the wound soon.

More pressing to them, however, it looked like Coach would be unable to walk very far on it until they had patched him up.

Rochelle was already looking around, head whipping side to side to scout the area while Ellis was busy rattling on and on about something or another. Nick would shut him up, but he couldn't even hear what the kid was saying over the ringing in his ears. With the back of his hand he wiped at the trail of blood leaking out of his nose.

In the end, they had no choice but to take a gamble on a couple of white-roofed silos off in the distance. A distance that would be easy to cross any other day, but would take them proverbial eons in their current condition if they had to bring Coach along. It was decided Rochelle would stay with him near the crash site, scouring whatever she could from the smoldering wreck. Maybe some of their supplies could be saved. Meanwhile, Nick and Ellis had to do the heavy lifting and make the track to the farm, hopefully coming back with proper first aid.

Nick wasn't exactly pleased with the arrangement – being stuck with the chatterbox in their group wasn't his idea of a good time - but didn't feel like putting up a fight. Regardless, they left quickly and Ellis kept up a constant stream of conversation for most of the walk. They had one handgun between the two of them, which Nick used to take out the handful of stray infected they encountered along the way.

After about twenty minutes of walking, they arrived at the farm. It was small, with only the two silos for storage, probably used for grain judging by the fields stretching beyond. There was no barn, nor any other sign the family kept animals except for a doghouse near the back of the property – which happened to be the side they approached from. This part of the garden was also lined by hip-height white fencing. Nick easily vaulted it, waiting for Ellis to do the same. The dog house was empty, with a rusty chain trailing from a hook fastened to the wood. If he had to guess, the animal tore it loose itself.

He approached the house slowly, but for now there was no sign of movement from inside. The windows were not boarded up either, so the likelihood of it currently being used as a shelter by anybody was small. "We go in quietly, just to be sure," Nick said. "And if you hear or see anything, you yell for me, got it?"

Ellis did not answer. Nick turned around and saw he was looking at what appeared to be two mounds of freshly disturbed dirt and upturned grass. Crudely improvised crosses, made from twigs and twine, were placed at the far end of the makeshift graves to serve as markers. Against one of them leaned a musty plush animal in the shape of a kitten, while the other was adorned with a faded blue ribbon. "Ellis!" Nick called to get his attention, and Ellis' head shot up immediately. "You heard me?"

"Y-yeah," Ellis muttered absently, before leading the way through the yard and onto the back porch of the farmhouse. A door with a fly screen attached to it was left slightly ajar, allowing them to get a look inside. With still no sign of life to be seen, they decided to just head on in without knocking.

The house was oddly clean. That was the first thing Nick noticed upon seeing the interior. It did not look ransacked like most of the other places they had been so far. From where they entered into a sizable living room area, he could oversee the hallway leading to the front door and other parts of the house. The door itself looked like somebody had attempted to nail it shut with planks at first, but most of them leaned against the wall to the side as if the owners had decided it wasn't worth the effort halfway through the process. He motioned for Ellis to follow him into the hallway.

The other doors were shut and Nick opened them one by one as they passed them, holding the gun in front of his body. The first door opened into an office, the one after it into the bathroom. The final door lead into a kitchen with a table and chairs pushed near the other wall. It only fitted four chairs, though one of them was the type of high chair you'd typically use for toddlers. After confirming there wasn't anybody inside, they both entered and promptly started pulling open cabinets and drawers.

All the canned food and items with long shelf live were long gone. Nick figured the people who lived here would have taken anything worth taking when they left so it wasn't like he was disappointed. He pulled open the fridge, the stench of sour milk and molded vegetables unbearable. He threw the door shut again. "So this was a fucking wild goose chase."

"Maybe..." Ellis answered, but he didn't seem to be listening. Nick shrugged it off and went out into the hallway again. A wooden staircase led onto the second floor of the building, but he quickly checked the bathroom for anything useful first, coming up empty. He rubbed one hand down his face when he saw the mess he made in the mirror, feeling the unpleasant stickiness of semi-dried blood on his skin.

If this entire errand would turn out fruitless he was gonna be seriously pissed.

"We gonna check upstairs?" Ellis asked from the kitchen doorway. Nick saw he had taken one of the kitchen knives and strapped it to his belt. The kid was probably uncomfortable going around unarmed.

"Ladies first," he said with a grin.

Ellis didn't even give him a chuckle. They didn't go as slow this time, confident that had anybody been upstairs they would have certainly heard their racket by now, infected or not. Ellis went right from the landing while Nick went left, like an unspoken agreement. The first door he opened was another bathroom, but one with a medicine cabinet this time. Most of the bottles were emptied out and scattered in the sink. He didn't even bother checking their labels.

The next room over was a bedroom. A kid's bedroom. Nick grunted under his breath, part of him wanting to close the door just as quickly. The wallpapers were an assault on the eyes, vibrant pink with purple clouds painted everywhere and unicorns prancing among them. A small bed with a fabric canopy stood in one corner. It felt weird – intrusive – for him to enter this room, especially as a grown middle-aged man. But Nick could not take the risk of missing out on supplies they could use later.

He pulled open the wardrobe to reveal little to no clothes, but two stray blankets bunched up on the lowest shelf. He took them. On the desk were a bunch of papers, homework maybe, and one or two drawings the girl had made before the world had gone to shit. Nick shook his head and moved on. "You find anything?" he yelled as he stepped out into the hallway again. There was no response. "Ellis!"

Only one door was on the right side of the landing, wide open yet too dark to see inside. Going by the rest of the layout, Nick deduced it to probably be the master bedroom. He fumbled with the blankets, unable to fold them to a more manageable size at a moment's notice. "Ellis, I could use a hand?" Still no reply.

"For God's sake-" He threw them onto the floor in a huff, knowing they could collect them later. In seconds he was barging into the bedroom, ready to give Ellis a piece of his damn mind. What he found instead, stopped him dead in his tracks.

It was dark because unlike the rest of the house, the curtains had been drawn close. On the bed lay two bodies. Nick almost reached for his holster, but they showed no sign of the mutations so typical of the infection, though they were halfway into decay.

"Shit-" he muttered. Ellis was standing in front of the bed, eyes locked on the corpses. They were posed in a somewhat embrace, the woman's head resting on the man's chest and with their eyes closed peacefully as if they had just drifted off. On the floor near the foot of the bed, there were several packed bags just scattered around. One of them was open to reveal the canned goods missing from the kitchen. "What the fuck happened here?"

It was a damn stupid question. "They came back," Ellis said, voice tiny like he couldn't breathe properly. "They tried to leave but they came back."

Nick swallowed. CEDA had pulled out as soon as things turned sour. By the time people realized how bad this pandemic was, how fucked up those infected with it became, the army was already cordoning of segments of the city to bomb. They had been lucky – lucky to be able to try and make it to one of the last evac points still in use, though it hadn't helped in the end.

Others weren't even fortunate enough to have anywhere else to go when the government decided to stop evacuating survivors in their area.

They could have held out, Nick thought. There weren't any other people for miles, no infected. It would have been easy to just hold out. But against the wall stood an empty crib and he knew why they had decided not to.

Sometimes you have to make the choice to take the easy way out. He knew what the labels on those medicine bottles would have been, had he bothered to read them.

"Let's check these other bags," he said curtly. "There's gotta be first aid in one of these." He was already on his knees. Just like Ellis had predicted, their contents revealed that whatever this family had tried to leave with, they had brought back. Food, clothes, medical supplies. Taking it all could be bothersome by foot, but if they were in luck the family would have a car upfront that they could somehow circle around with to reunite with the others.

They had hit the apocalypse jackpot.

"We gotta carry these down," Nick began, but Ellis still hadn't moved, still hadn't looked away.

"This is wrong," he said. There was a frown stuck on his face and under one eye a sizable bruise was starting to form, probably as a result of the crash.

"Don't be stupid," Nick said, and then because he realized such a statement could come across harsher than he intended, hoisted one of the bags onto the bed and stood up. "It's a pity, but they're not going to need it. _We_ need this. You can't steal from the dead."

"No, that's not..." Ellis trailed off for a second, finally looking away. Nick had never seen the kid this hesitant before, thinking this much about his words. It made him feel uneasy. "I mean this." And he gestured vaguely at the two bodies lying on the bed in their final embrace. "This is wrong."

Nick felt something tight and chocking crawl into his throat. "Ellis," he said, grabbed him by his elbow and Ellis looked up at him like a deer caught in the headlights, pale and frantic. Nick could imagine he looked about the same after all they'd been through. "Listen to me and listen to me closely. Shit has happened. Shit will continue to happen and all we can do is fight for ourselves right now. This is-"

Ellis pulled away, then took a step back. "This isn't fair," he said. "It's not fair, why us? Why didn't we die and they did?"

"Life isn't fair," Nick answered.

His retort looked like it had a physical effect on Ellis. Like he had just gone and slapped him in the face. He swallowed, opened his mouth to respond but then shut it with an audible click. Nick could see his chest rise and fall in a clear indication that he was on the brink of hyperventilation.

And never even once during all this had Nick seen Ellis cry, but right now it looked like he was too close to it for Nick to stomach.

Stepping forward, Ellis did not pull away from him a second time and Nick grabbed both his shoulders, grip too tight as he tried not to shake some sense into him. "Ellis, we can't do this, not after we came this far."

Wide blue eyes searched his face. "Do what?"

Nick hated this. He hated it so much he wanted to hurl. His head was pounding from the crash, he felt dirty and disgusting and all he wanted was to take a break. He could not be the positive team cheerleader right now.

But he could not deal with Ellis crying either. So he did something he probably hadn't done since his mother died. He hugged another person.

It was awkward in all the wrong ways, the smell of death and decay in his nostrils and Ellis' bloodstained shirt pressed against him. "We can't break down," he told him. There was a beating in his chest, but Nick didn't even know whose heart he was feeling anymore – rapid and out of tune. "We came this fucking far, you're not allowed to give up now. You need to survive where they couldn't."

Ellis stilled, like he needed to let those words sink in. They stood there for what felt like hours to Nick, but was probably less than a minute. Then Ellis nodded and Nick let go again, desperately pretending he didn't just do that. At long last, the semblance of a smile had returned to Ellis' face, though he looked too tired to make it last.

"Don't mention this to the others," Nick said. He was rewarded with a dry chuckle, but really he wasn't joking. "I mean it."

Ellis bent down to pick up one of the bags left on the ground. "It'll be our dirty little secret."

"Don't call it that."

They sorted out whatever they needed most in silence until they were left with just two bags to carry. This would last them several days at least. By then they would have found a new place to go to, or a more permanent hideout where gathering supplies would be easier.

"What about them?" Ellis asked, just as they were about to leave. He was frowning again, though it was a small, fragile thing compared to before.

Nick followed his eyes to the couple on the bed. "What do you mean?"

Ellis swallowed, hoisted the bag he was carrying further onto his shoulder, and gripped the strap until his knuckles turned white. "I just don't think it'd be right to just leave them like that, is all."

Nick sighed, but let his own bag slip to the floor. "Fine."

He walked into the hallway to retrieve the blankets he had left there earlier. They weren't very big, but when laid out just right he could cover both corpses sufficiently. On the bedside table was a family photograph. The woman had long, black hair and brown eyes that sparkled in a way you don't usually see in city folk. The man had the kind of wrinkles around his eyes you find in people who smile a lot as they grow old.

The little girl had a blue ribbon in her hair. She was holding on to her younger brother with all the conviction of a child who sees their newfound duties as a big sibling as the greatest honor in the world. His little hands were clutching a plush kitten.

Nick picked up the frame and put it face down onto the surface, shielding this modicum of a happy family of the reality they had become. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe it hadn't been the easy choice after all.

Maybe it had been the only choice left to make.

"Ready to go?" Ellis asked and if he noticed what Nick had done with the photograph, he wasn't mentioning it.

"Dying to."

And he knew they would continue to make the only choice left for them. They would continue to survive.

**Author's Note:**

> It was a lot of fun to write this fandom again, might do some more soon!
> 
> [my Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


End file.
